Author: Thomas Mira Y Lopez File Type: epub The Book of Resting Places is Mira y Lopezs account of his travels, from a cemetery to a crematorium to a cryonics company . . . Hes looking for the good death, somewhere, anywhere. *The New Yorker* In the aftermath of his fathers untimely death and his familys indecision over what to do with the remains, Thomas Mira y Lopez became obsessed with the type and variety of places where we lay the dead to rest. The result is a singular collection of essays that weaves together history, mythology, journalism, and personal narrative into the authors search for a place to process grief. Mira y Lopez explores unusual hallowed groundsfrom the worlds largest cryonics institute in southern Arizona to a set of Roman catacombs being digested by modern bacteria, to his familys burial plots in the mountains outside Rio de Janeiro to a nineteenth-century desert cemetery that was relocated for the building of a modern courthouse. The Book of Resting Places examines these overlooked spaces and what they tell us about ourselves and the passing of those we lovehow we grieve them, and how we attempt to forget them. **

Author: Sara M. Benson File Type: pdf Built in the 1890s at the center of the nation, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary was designed specifically to be a replica of the US Capitol Building. But why? The Prison of Democracy explains the political significance of a prison built to mimic one of Americas monuments to democracy. Locating Leavenworth in memory, history, and law, the prison geographically sits at the borders of Indian Territory (18251854) and Bleeding Kansas (18541864), both sites of contestation over slavery and freedom. Author Sara M. Benson argues that Leavenworth reshaped the design of punishment in America by gradually normalizing state-inflicted violence against citizens. Leavenworths peculiar architecture illustrates the real roots of mass incarcerationas an explicitly race- and nation-building system that has been ingrained in the very fabric of US history rather than as part of a recent post-war racial history. The book sheds light on the truth of the painful relationship between the carceral state and democracy in the USa relationship that thrives to this day. **Atpublicationdate, a free ebook version of this title will be available throughLuminos, University of California Presss Open Access publishing program. Visitwww.luminosoa.orgto learn more.

Author: W. P. Kaschka File Type: pdf Suicide is one of the most important causes of death in modern societies. To develop more effective preventive measures, we have to be aware of and learn more about its neurobiological foundations. In recent years, the tools of modern neurosciences have increasingly been utilized to characterize the pathophysiology of complex human behaviors such as suicide. To improve suicide risk assessment and suicide prevention, a better understanding of its pathophysiology is crucial. This includes research from a variety of disciplines such as neuropsychological, psychosocial and cultural studies but also findings from biochemistry, neuropathology, electrophysiology, immunology, neuroimaging, genetics, and epigenetics. Important results have, for example, been obtained in the field of gene-environment interaction and suicidal behavior. We have just begun to understand how early-life adversity may increase suicide risk by epigenetic mechanisms. Based on such insights, novel therapeutic interventions and preventive measures can be developed. Furthermore, a better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in suicidal behavior could reveal the mechanism of compounds like lithium salts. In this book, suicidal behavior and its prevention is discussed by international experts in the light of the most recent results from a broad spectrum of neurosciences. **

Author: Alain Badiou File Type: pdf A journey through twentieth-century philosophy with the titan of French thought.Pocket Pantheon is an invitation to engage with the greats of postwar Western thought, such as Lacan, Sartre and Foucault, in the company of one of todays leading political and philosophical minds. Alain Badiou draws on his encounters with this pantheon his teachers, opponents and allies to offer unique insights into both the authors and their work. These studies form an accessible, authoritative distillation of continental theory and a capsule history of a period in Western thought.From Publishers WeeklyAn uneven and politically jaundiced collection of brief tributes to 14 deceased 20th-century French philosophers ranging from the renowned (Derrida, Foucault, Sartre) to those practically unknown outside of France (Gilles Chatelet, Francoise Proust) by one of the primary current contenders for the title of continental philosopher-king. Offering less an introductory primer on French thought than a series of theoretical appropriations and political alignments, Badiou (Being and Event) reinforces his own ideas on the relationship between thought and political action, Being as multiplicity and, most frequently, his own Maoist commitments. With a tendency to self-mythologize through association (Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, Canguilhem, Verstraeten, Terray, and yours truly) and repeated invocation of the May 1968 student revolts, the author identifies political revolutionary aspects not only in Althusser, as expected, but in the thought of Lacan and even Lyotard. Meanwhile, on the theoretical level, Derridas notion of linguistic slippage is packaged into an account of degrees of existence, all the more confusing for its brevity. Neither a truly illuminating introduction to French philosophy nor to Badious own complex thought, this books primary value is rather as a document of Badious strategic positionings and prejudices. (Sept.) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. ReviewA figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us! (Slavoj Zizek )One of the most important philosophers writing today. (Joan Copjec )An heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. (New Statesman ) Pocket Pantheon is an invitation to engage with the greats of postwar Western thought, such as Lacan, Sartre and Foucault, in the company of one of todays leading political and philosophical minds. Alain Badiou draws on his encounters with this pantheon his teachers, opponents and allies to offer unique insights into both the authors and their work. These studies form an accessible, authoritative distillation of continental theory and a capsule history of a period in Western thought.